Andrew Torget will chart the rapid expansion of slave smuggling along the Texas-Louisiana border during the 1810s.  The explosion of the cotton frontier in the Mississippi River Valley meant there was a fortune to be made smuggling enslaved people from Cuba to the United States, though Texas, during this period.  Following famous outlaws like Jean Lafitte and James Bowie, Torget will explain the role of 1810s Texas in the secret smuggling of slaves along the Gulf Coast.